Think we’re a bad bunch of girls? Check out these gals!
The Dagger Debs/The Jezebels in Switchblade Sisters
For Olga
Marissa sent me an article by Ann Hood about her mother and her mother’s friends, who met every Friday night to play cards, the ones who went to school together and still lived within a mile of each other. It was shared on the blog yesterday.
Of course it made me think of my mother and her gang. The three basic members who met when they got their first jobs selling magazine subscriptions door to door, marrying guys from the same social club and having daughters at the same time. Olga remains with us (I love you, although you may doubt me because I am a bad correspondent), still able to tell a good joke and remember the punch line, something my mother was not able to do. My mother was extraordinarily witty, but jokes with a beginning, middle and end were not her thing. The quick remark that left you faint with laughter, that was Shirl.
My mother and her friends were not into card parties (that was my grandmother’s time), just the occasional hand of bridge… they were into fortune tellers and eating lunch out and chasing fire trucks and gossip. Together they left me the gift of Sylvia, all of them put together are Sylvia. Thank you.
If you would like to share a story about your mother, please send it in!
Flower Girls Grown Up
Bad Girl Pall Richard sent us this photo of those little girls in the Garfield Park Conservatory all grown up and living in Paris.
Here they are at on a corner in the 6th Arrondissement.
We Won!
The Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) passed the House! At least they did something last week. For more on the VAWA, check out The New York Times article: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/01/us/politics/congress-passes-reauthorization-of-violence-against-women-act.html?emc=eta1&_r=0
Image from: http://www.mpac.org/
Something To Watch, Something Life Enhancing
Tuesday evening I watched the PBS documentary MAKERS: Women Who Made America. It was the most thrilling documentary I’ve ever seen. I wondered why so much of it was new to me, and I realized that when the Women’s Movement started there was so much animosity toward it that the events that made it exciting and life changing were not common knowledge. Everything about the movement that was world-shattering was played down, made invisible.
I knew nothing about what the Women’s Liberation Union was doing in New York, nothing about the first woman to enter the New York Marathon, nothing about the sit-in at The Ladies Home Journal, nothing about the numbers of women marching in New York, and I was an active feminist! I was part of the class-action suit that finished off gender-based classified want ads in Chicago, and yet I was ignorant of events in other cities. I didn’t know about the large part Phyllis Schlafly played in stopping the passage of the ERA. Depressing but an important part of the total picture. Please watch it…It will make you feel good. http://www.pbs.org/makers/home/ and http://www.makers.com/.
Watch Part One: Awakening on PBS. See more from Makers: Women Who Make America.
Sylvia Archive: Gender Problems
Any supporters? Cast your ballot in a comment.
Three’s A Trend
My friend Tom says if you see three of anything on the way to the office, it’s a trend. You know like three people wearing their baseball caps backward, drinking Starbucks and wearing flip flops in the winter. Wait! That was already a trend.
I think I spotted one for this week: Famous women who are not feminists and women who have utterly no empathy with other women. Here’s a Ultra Violet petition asking Dana Perino of Fox News Corp. to apologize for blaming women for their abuse and death by abusers. http://act.weareultraviolet.org/sign/perino/?akid=245.412548.YaDoiR&rd=1&t=2
For an discussion on this ‘trend,’ here’s Mary Elizabeth Williams’ probing article: http://www.salon.com/2012/12/03/why_are_women_scared_to_call_themselves_feminists/
And since three is a charm, even Taylor Swift doesn’t want to be labeled a feminist. http://jezebel.com/5953879/dont-go-calling-taylor-swift-a-feminist-says-taylor-swift
These Women Want You To Vote!
Bad Girl Chats was inform of two great voting videos: Leslie Gore’s new take on “You Don’t Own Me,” and Lena Dunham’s support ad for President Obama. Thank you, Tom G.! They are very political and very clever.
“You Don’t Own Me” PSA -Official from You Don’t Own Me on Vimeo.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=o6G3nwhPuR4
Thinking of not voting? Beware! And click the comic to make it bigger.
The Secret’s Out
Thank you, Tom G., for passing on this link. It’s too funny to miss!
Other Women’s Breasts
I remember vividly pushing Kleenex into my bra at 14. I even remember the blouse I wore. It was a wonderful purple. Where is that blouse? More importantly, why is that color not popular anymore, and why are my breasts so close to my waist?
When I was in my sixties I had an adulterous affair with a boy I met at college right before I graduated. We hadn’t spoken for around 40 years when he tracked me through the internet and got my phone number. We flirted easily and arranged a rendezvous for immediately.
This was my first and only betrayal of another woman. He had a lot of practice in that particular area. When he saw me undressed, he was awed. “When did that happen?” He meant my large breasts. I laughed. I laughed to think that men are so breast obsessed that they can remember the size of a pair they saw 40 years ago. And that even though my breasts were not those perky high dancing twins that they were in college, they were large and size matters.
Deanna shares an instance when a man complimented her breasts, too, though from a different angle.
I dabble in online dating on a free website, and I’ve been on all kinds of dates. Some good, some awkward, and only a few that were just plain bad. Only once did a date ever offend me with a compliment, let alone offend me. After a long first-and-last date, I shook the guy’s hand and wished him the best.
When I got home, there was an email waiting for me. He sent me a message asking if all of my body parts were real. That is, my breasts. I had worn a jeans and a grey T-shirt that evening. He went on to say that he meant it as a compliment, and that I should really show them off because they could be a real asset in dating. Further compliments were heaped on me, letting me know that I had a ‘Midwestern grain-fed charm’ that should one day secure me a husband. Oh. Joy.
I blocked him from my profile and have heard no more.
When do compliments of another’s body cross boundaries and become a way to shame? For more on that question, here’s an article from The Atlantic. It includes the tragic story of Amanda Todd’s bullying and death. (http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/10/pointless-shame-the-english-speaking-worlds-issue-with-womens-breasts/263585/)
Nicole Hollander’s “Self Portrait”
